Nanée grabbed the kangaroos. She tried to move carefully, but still the music sounded again, a single note from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, “Waltz of the Flowers.” Nasty creatures always get their comeuppance in the end, Daddy had assured her.
But that had been pretend. This wasn’t pretend.
Another quiet metallic plink sounded.
“H?rt ihr das?” Robert insisted. “Musik.”
The soldiers went silent just above them.
Nanée held her breath and listened, thinking Robe Heir. Thinking little Bobby and imagining this Robert too as she’d imagined the commandant, as a pathetic little boy playing dress-up in a ratty old robe that had been his grandmother’s. Are you an honorable man?
Several of the men on the road above were talking at once now, all looking for the source of Robert’s music.
She racked her mind for a plan. She had an American passport. Luki had an American passport. But Edouard was a stateless refugee, with one set of documents that were forged and another under his own name, which was on the Gestapo list for deportation to Germany.
How many of these men had there been the night before? In their black boots and their black uniforms, their black limousines, their black hearts. Were they all there now?
She fingered the kangaroo’s mohair ear the way she so often fondled Dagobert’s. Would she ever see him again?
What a brave girl you are. You don’t even cry.
“Die Musik ist in deinem Kopf,” one of the other Gestapo above them said. Not Robe Heir.
There was much hilarity in response.
“Die Musik muss aus der Tiefe der H?hle kommen. Mach weiter, Robert. Springen!”
They laughed and laughed at that.
Voices again, and the sound of scrambling above. One of them climbing down?
Nanée looked about, but there was nowhere for Edouard and Luki and her to hide, nowhere to escape. Just the narrow, rocky path in either direction, and the long drop off the cliff ledge.
More scrambling. A tussle?
More words. More laughter.
Boys taunting each other, like they had when Robe Heir had stopped to flirt with her last night. Like Dickey and his friends had taunted her that time she went dove hunting with Daddy and them.
The Gestapo moved on, still laughing.
They appeared up ahead on the curving road, three men in black boots and black uniforms. Only three.
If she could see them, they could see her. Their backs were to her, walking away, but if they turned now and looked, they would see Edouard and Luki and her.
She signaled for Edouard to stay up against the cliff wall behind her. She was already removing her gloves and reaching into the pocket of her flight jacket for her pearl-handled Webley.
There were only three Germans.
She tucked the kangaroos between her thighs to free her hands, and silently readied the gun.
The Nazis kept moving forward, kept laughing.
She pointed the gun, both hands on the grip and her finger on the trigger, her arms straight out in front of her, the way her father taught her.
Focusing on the target.
Wishing she could do something else with the kangaroos so she could widen her stance.
Wishing she had a longer-barreled gun for the better shot.
Willing the men not to turn back, not to see them.
Perfectly still and focused.
She had a clean line of sight.
They weren’t far away now, but with each passing moment they were expanding the distance.
Luki, behind her, remained quieter than Nanée had ever imagined a child could be as Nanée clutched the gun while keeping the kangaroos wedged between her thighs, praying to the Lady Mary that no further music would sound. Praying for the wind to howl again.
The men kept walking, kept laughing.
The growing distance was a good thing. Perhaps they would just keep walking. But with each step, the difficulty of the shot was growing too.
The one named Robert glanced back.
Did he see them?
No, he was turning again to his comrades. He was still walking.
The pearl handle of the gun was cold against her fingers. Like the cold grip of her shotgun, the pieces of shot warm as she dug them from the dove’s fragile breast.
Robert’s head turned to look again, registering what he couldn’t quite believe he’d seen. Astonishment in his face.
She willed him to pretend not to see her. To let them go, as the Germans at Madame Dupin’s tomb had done.
It seemed forever, him standing there, deciding.
The sun sharp on her face. Her bare fingers on the gun.
Just pretend you don’t see us, Robe Heir.
His mouth opening. Yelling to the others.
She pulled the trigger.